A young man spins unlit fire chains by himself, in the middle of Collier Park at Soto & Greene. His phone rings, a tinny sound from his pocket. He pauses to answer it, tucks it between his shoulder and his ear, and continues to spin while he talks. The spinning is almost an afterthought, his body dancing slowly, almost like tai chi, but with whizzing metal balls on chains involved.
Slowly a troupe forms, ten people or so, mostly men and mostly young-looking, in their 20’s and 30’s. They lounge on the grass at first, then as more people begin to show up with more gear – long poles of PVC piping, tennis balls shoved into knee-high pantyhose, hula-hoops, and other practice materials – the people on the ground begin to rise, and to spin.
This group meets every Monday at 6p.m., organized and led by Chris Harrison. By day, Harrison is a computer programmer at UCSD. By night, his occupation and persona changes – he is known as Taz, and he spins fire. He runs the Monday flow class for all levels, and fire is not involved. It’s a practice session, so relaxed that I even join in, giving myself a couple good whacks in the head and shins before finally nailing down a solid turn. It’s harder than it looks.
But I am here not because fire spinning looks cool, although it does, I am here because fire activities have become controversial lately. OB is a community rich in burners, known as such because a number of them perform at the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada, as the San Diego Fire Conclave.
